Before I Let You Go(4)

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it—the immediate need is to get her to a hospital to push anti-hypertension drugs into her system to bring her blood pressure down. Plus, that baby needs urgent monitoring—proper monitoring, not the very limited heart-rate check we can do here—and if we don’t move fast, there might not even be a baby to save. I don’t want to tell Annie this—in part because I don’t want to stress her further and push her blood pressure even higher. But if explaining the immediate threat to her baby’s health is off the table, I don’t know what I’ll say to convince her. I’m relieved when Sam rescues me.

“Annie, I know this is hard. But your condition is very poor, and the baby is in serious danger. There is only so much Lexie and I can do for you here. We’ll take you to my hospital, and I promise you—you’ll get the very best medical care possible.”

“But I’ll be arrested,” Annie says. She wraps her arms around her belly again and shakes her head. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I promise her. I have no idea if that’s true, but I’m so desperate that I’ll say pretty much anything to get her to the hospital. Annie slowly raises her eyes toward me. There is both fear and hope in her gaze—but suddenly I don’t see her haggard appearance or the pitiful trailer.

I just see my baby sister—the little girl who used to see the world as a place of wonder, a child of limitless creativity and potential. I see her sitting frozen under the tree in our front yard, holding my hand with a death grip as we watched the procession of mourners stream into our house after Dad’s funeral—trusting me to take care of her, just as I’d always promised Dad I would.

I see the child who faced our childhood with courage, the child with a simple optimism and faith that we’d make it through together. I see the girl with an innate sense of fairness who rallied and fought against the rules of our strict childhood home, and then the determined young woman who marched right on out of there when she could take it no longer.

Creativity, passion, courage, optimism—in this moment, I see only the essence of who Annie really is. Suddenly she is not an addict or a potential criminal, not even a somewhat negligent soon-to-be mother—she is simply my Annie, and she is sick, and she needs my support.

Maybe this is the moment when it all turns around.

“You promise it will be okay?” she chokes.

I lean over and I take her hand in mine, and I squeeze it hard. Is this going to haunt me? Perhaps—but I can imagine a worse fate.

“I promise you.”





2


ANNIE


To Luke:

You told me to write the things I can’t say, so here I’m sitting in my room with a pen in my hand. I haven’t written in years, and I can’t believe I’m writing in this journal. It’s the only possession I’ve ever kept for more than a year or two. This notebook has been sacred to me, right from the day I got it—the best day of my life, May 28, 1993.

It was the day before summer break and the whole school had shuffled into the auditorium for the end-of-year awards ceremony. I saw Dad as soon as I stepped through the door. He had such a presence about him—he was tall and strong, with thick blond hair and that huge smile he wore whenever he saw us. I knew that he must be there for Lexie—she always won an end-of-year award. Mom taught second grade, so she was always at the presentation, but this was the first year Dad turned up. I figured Lexie must have done something quite extraordinary to warrant him missing a shift, and I was excited to see what it was.

I kept glancing over my shoulder to look for Dad at the back of the room with the other parents, and if I angled my head just right, I could see him beaming toward the stage. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can still picture him like that—the proud, expectant smile on his face—his clean-shaven jaw strong and his blue eyes sparkling. After a while, Dad saw me peeking at him and he gave me a wave and a grin.

Lexie won her usual academic achievement award, and I clapped so hard that my palms stung. When she was on stage accepting it, she looked down at my class and she beamed right at me. I was so proud of her—I don’t think it even occurred to me to be jealous.

And then something completely and beautifully unexpected happened. The principal announced that this year there was a new prize that had been arranged for a uniquely gifted student. I assumed it would be an award for Lexie—everyone knew she was the smartest kid in school, and she was going to middle school the following year so it made sense for them to honor her one last time. But then the principal said the right last name, but the wrong first name.

Annie Vidler.

I waited for him to correct himself. My teacher came toward me in a crouch and waved at me to go toward the stage, and I gave her a confused glance. Why would I win a special award? The only unique thing about me was that Lexie Vidler was my sister.

By the time I got to the podium, I was dizzy with confusion and embarrassment, and I thought that any second now the principal would realize his mistake and everyone was going to laugh at me for thinking that I might win a prize. But then he shook my hand and he passed me a certificate and said into the microphone, “This award goes to Annie Vidler for extraordinary achievements in creative writing. Annie’s poetry and stories have amazed the teaching staff this year, and we felt it important to recognize such an exceptional talent.”